Half Life
by FabulousKilljoyPhilosophy
Summary: He felt himself changing slowly, with every pseudonym darkening, becoming a version of him that others had often feared possible. 'We're just the same, you and I' a whisper in his memory Post Reichenbach


Half Life

James Sigurdsson stared blankly at the dirty wall in the dank, sparsely furnished bedsit. His eyes glazed over, thoughts turned darkly inwards; he appeared completely dissociated from his surroundings. A tap dripped, the wallpaper curling and the cracks in the water damaged ceiling seemed to throb in time with the pulse in the crook of his left arm. Surveillance photographs and files to be burned scattered around his prone form on the threadbare old mattress amongst dubious stains. The continuous wailing of a small child permeated the air, thick with stale tobacco smoke mingling with the stench of the room.

His thoughts had turned towards old memories, ones that he had savagely beaten back behind solid doors, thoughts of a hundred different lives, different names in various places of squalor around the globe, and to one in particular. Sherlock Holmes's life had ended in tragedy and bitterness on the pavement of a London street on an overcast day. The media had grasped at the story, pouncing like vultures, scrawling carefully planned out hatred and lies, playing right into the hands of the world's only consultant criminal. Snapping out of his trace like position the man glanced down at the old, well-loved mp3 player that he had stolen from the flat of Molly Hooper in a moment of rare quiet. Frowning furtively, any fleeting feelings of guilt were soon quashed at the memory of a sum far exceeding the cost of the object stashed into the couch cushions as an apology of sorts. He had silently exited the flat in the dead of night, without a farewell, as a new man; after all, Sherlock Holmes was dead. It mostly contained drivel that he had deleted or blatantly ignored; using it only as cover or a way to switch off his mind, but a few words occasionally permeated the palace inside his head, causing him to reflect.

_'You don't remember my name, I don't really care.'_

One grainy black and white CCTV snapshot caught the man's eye as he glanced around him and he eyed it, contemplating, as he raised a cigarette to his pale lips. It depicted a short, gaunt, grieving man, leaning heavily on a cane as he greeted an equally short and contrastingly bright middle-aged woman with large eyes and dyed blonde hair. A moment, a world away from his current situation, blessedly so. He frowned at that, raising a lighter, pickpocketed almost two years ago from a man named Lestrade, one he had refilled instead of discarded, _sentiment_, he thought with some irritation as he lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply. The acrid taste filled his mouth as smoke infiltrated his lungs, nicotine slowly absorbed into his veins beneath an already present nicotine patch. Too slowly, as his mind raced. He growled in frustration, flicking ash onto the bare mattress, and turned his attention back to the files, recently acquired from his temporary source, depicting the lives of criminals, thieves, murderers, gang members and rapists the lot of them, the scum of Moscow's underbelly. Some of them insignificant, others, not so much, and those were the ones he focussed on, their time was numbered. His face clouded over with vicious intent, there was blood on his hands, rivers of it, and he felt himself slightly different for it, the potential of the hunt thrumming with the hunger in his itching veins. He did not regret a moment of it, it was… necessary, and besides that, he felt no remorse, he began to savour the chase, the violence, relishing that fleeting moment when eyes glassed over, another target neutralised, disposed of, a threat diminished. A threat to John.

'_Can we play the game your way? Can I really lose control?'_

He felt himself changing slowly, with every pseudonym darkening, becoming a version of him that others had often feared possible. _'We're just the same, you and I' _a whisper in his memory. His fingers burned as his cigarette burned to the filter, forgotten. Huffing angrily, he hastily lit another. The angry pink scars marring and crisscrossing his back from the altercation in Serbia shivered in the winter cold, the bedsit's heating having given up hours earlier with a faint splutter. He pulled his tattered hoodie more firmly around his gaunt frame as his newest disposable phone buzzed insistently. His interest, peaked slightly as he glanced at the display, the brightest source of light in the dimly lit room. The screen read in coded Russian:

This is getting out of hand, Brother.  
You need to return immediately, finished or not.  
MH

He growled in disappointed frustration at the message and lack of leads, deleting it along with the others he tossed the phone aside, inhaling with renewed vigour at the full tar cigarette between his teeth and exhaling dramatically through his nose. John would disapprove, but then, John was not here, John was _safe, _safe in London, with _Mary. _He grimaced at the thought, partly selfishly, partly at the thought of John's obvious boredom without his regular adrenalin fix, without the cases, without…him.

'_Mary had a lamb, his eyes black as coals.'_

He frowned at the mp3 player, trying to ignore the calling from his veins, his thoughts cutting to the little bag of white powder sitting ostentatiously on the counter in the tiny excuse for a bathroom. He sat up suddenly, gasping faintly at the sharp stab of pain that shot through his right abdominal muscles, still not completely healed then? Dull. The inactivity was starting to get to him, and the cold was grating on his nerves, perhaps, perish the thought, his overbearing brother was right and he had been in isolation for too long? Dismissing the thought he smirked, despite his bravado, Mycroft's choice of language was merely based on guess work, even the British Government had not been able to trace his movements over the globe, and, he added smugly, not for lack of trying. Despite a few updates left in various drop boxes, including unasked for and distracting pictures from his old life, he had had next to no contact with his Brother in the twenty two months he had been away.

'_If we play very quiet, my lamb, Mary never has to know.'_

Another few hours of perusing the files for the twentieth time and two packs of cigarettes later, with little to no new leads and Sherlock was frustrated. Pacing his disgusting excuse for accommodation and chain smoking himself to an early grave (the irony was not lost on him) had gotten him nowhere and even his iron strong sense of will was beginning to waver in the form of furtive glances towards the firmly closed bathroom door, his breath steaming in the frigid air. '_I'm pretty sure you could search this flat all day, you wouldn't find anything you could call recreational.' _Shaking his head firmly against the onslaught, he came to a dead stop, fingers twitching, and just for a moment he longed for the strings of his violin, the taste of PG Tips, for Cluedo, for triple murders, for…for _home, _for _John_. Raking his hands against his cropped short (too short) hair, pressing his hands painfully into his temporal bones, he banished the thoughts behind locked doors in elaborate hallways. He stared at the files on the bed, and snapping his spine ramrod straight, he turned and marched into the bathroom. Just a few moments later, he had returned to his previous position on the bed, the tourniquet in place, the syringe full of his seven percent solution, pausing with the needle poised, clarity just seconds away.  
'_If I cut you down to a thing I can use, I fear there'll be nothing good left of you.'_

He thought of Sherlock Holmes; Consulting Detective, of John Hamish Watson, of James Moriarty, of that day in the rain, standing on that ledge, of falling endlessly, and of three snipers. Remembering that this is what it was all for, steeled himself, and pierced the skin, depressing the plunger.


End file.
